The Pursued

by C. S. Forester

  She had not meant to say those last words. They slipped out during her hurried explanations as she strove to prevail upon George to let her go quickly.

  ‘What d’you mean? What’s he doing?’ It was a growl rather than a whisper.

  ‘Oh nothing, dear, I didn’t mean that. I only meant that I must go in again now. I can’t stop.’

  Ted was being beastly, sure enough, but she did not want to tell George about it – she would not even if there had been time tonight. Marjorie had resolved to fight this particular battle by herself. It was the moment of crisis for which she had been steeling herself all day. She could not tell George that she had been fobbing off Ted with excuses ever since last Saturday, for that would disclose the necessary corollary that along with the excuses had gone an implied promise for tonight. And Ted was in the sitting-room awaiting her return – it would only be a matter of seconds before he started to look for her to discover what she was doing.

  ‘What is it, darling? What’s the matter?’ There was agony in Ely’s voice as he sensed her agitation.

  ‘It’s just that I’m afraid Ted’ll come out. Oh, let me go, dear. Goodbye, darling. Goodbye. See you tomorrow.’

  She was gone, leaving Ely in the darkness staring after her. His hands were clenched until they hurt; his collar was too tight for him, but these discomforts were unnoticed items in the wave of misery which was engulfing him. His helplessness shocked him.

  ‘What can we do?’ he said to himself. ‘What can we do?’

  He stood chafing at his impotence in the garden for a space before he stamped off, up the lane along the railway. An electric train rattled by before he reached the corner in Simon Street. Then he walked in misery along the wet roads in the lamplight back to Dewsbury Road.

  In the sitting-room in Harrison Way Ted was trying to put his arms round Marjorie, as every detail of his behaviour that evening had predicted that he would.

  ‘Have you got time to kiss me now, old girl?,’ he said.

  Marjorie gazed round the room like a hunted wild animal. There was no refuge, no succour there. Not in the faded wallpaper, nor in the threadbare carpet, nor in the battered chairs nor in the cheap loud speaker. There was the usual heap of clothes to be mended lying in the basket by her chair. To be sitting quietly mending clothes at this moment would be paradise, but there was no chance of it. Ted was looming up over her. She had a nightmare feeling, as if he were twenty feet tall and six feet broad, as if the whole room were filling with Ted’s body.

  His hands were stroking her throat.

  ‘No!’ she said. ‘No!’

  She struck out feebly with her arms, blindly. One weak fist hit Ted on the nose and mouth.

  ‘What the hell?’ he demanded. ‘What the devil d’you mean?’

  He drew back from her a pace. His earlier suspicions that she was going through a phase of coolness towards him were confirmed, but he had not anticipated as hostile a reception as this. He was angry, and the sight of Marjorie’s face, white and lopsided with loathing, made him angrier than ever.

  ‘I – I can’t’ said Marjorie. ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘You’d better get over that quick,’ said Ted. ‘You’ve had time enough.’

  Marjorie gulped. This was the moment, visualized in a hundred different forms, when she would have to tell Ted that she no longer cared for him in that way, when she was to persuade him to agree to leave her alone for the rest of their lives. She was to promise him in return all the freedom he desired – once or twice this week in hopeful moments she had pictured his falling in with the suggestion, grudgingly, perhaps. But it was infinitely more difficult even than she had imagined. She plunged desperately into speech, holding out her hands to fend off Ted’s overpowering bulk the while.

  ‘No,’ she gabbled. ‘I can’t sleep with you any more, Ted. I – I’ve finished with all that. Please don’t ask me any more. You can do what you like, Ted. You can have who you like. I shan’t mind. But leave me alone. That’s – that’s what I wanted to say, Ted.’

  She was blind even though her eyes were open, as though a solid fog were round her. She stood, seeing nothing, in the brief silence that followed. Ted’s voice when he spoke seemed to come from a long way away.

  ‘I see,’ he said, and there was an edge to his voice. ‘That’s the idea, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Vision had returned to her. Now that she had said it all she could see him plainly again, shrunk to his natural size, but not the less menacing because of that. The tempest of rage, insane and uncontrolled, which she had anticipated, showed no sign of appearing. His eyes narrowed and his thick lip compressed. Ted had not been unprepared for this outburst, and he knew how he was going to deal with it.

  ‘You think you’re going to get away with that, do you?’ he said, with a cold intensity far more frightening than any anger. ‘I keep you and pay for your clothes and give you slap-up holidays, and that’s how you behave. What’s at the bottom of all this?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Marjorie. ‘Nothing, except that I don’t want to.’

  ‘Who’s the other man?’ Ted shot the question at her as though from a catapult. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘No one,’ said Marjorie steadily. She had anticipated that question, and the fact of being asked it helped her to gather herself together.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘No one,’ repeated Marjorie. Nothing on earth would make her say otherwise. ‘No one, really and truly.’

  Ted believed her – not so much because she lied so steadily, as because that was what he wanted to believe. It would have been a terrible blow to his self-esteem if he had learned that Marjorie preferred another man to him. He looked at her with his narrowed eyes again, and she shrank away before him, and as he moved towards her she shrank back further still. That in itself was gratifying to him. It pleased him to see her so frightened of him. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the thought that it would be a delicious and new experience to subject her to himself while she was in this mood, shrinking and reluctant. He could compel her, he knew. He had thought of the ideal method – the germs of the inspiration had lain ready to sprout in his mind for years back. The notion was intoxicating and exhilarating to him. He only hoped that she was very set and determined in this new course of hers. The more set she was, and the more chaste and virginal she aspired to be – for that matter the more distasteful he had become to her – the more enchanting would be the reluctant surrender he knew he could command from her. He knew that there was a way (and he knew she had not thought of it, so that it would be a surprise to her) to reduce her to instant, abject subjection. He was thrilled at the thought; the anticipation was delicious. He explored farther to test how determined she was.

  ‘You’ll bloody well do what I tell you,’ he growled at her, head and chin coming forward.

  ‘No!’ she said.

  ‘You will!’

  ‘No I won’t. I won’t!’

  He was satisfied now that she was absolutely determined. So much the better. Soon she would be his yielding slave, obedient to any command he cared to give.

  ‘Now listen,’ he said. ‘You’re a fool. I could beat you – make you do what I said.’

  ‘You couldn’t! You can’t make me!’

  ‘Oh, so I can’t, can’t I? You’re sure of it, are you? I haven’t got to beat you at all. There’s young Anne upstairs. What about her? A dam’ good hiding tonight wouldn’t be one too many for her. And I wouldn’t mind giving her one, either. Shall I go up and fetch her down? Eh?’

  ‘Ted!’

  It was the climax of horror. Marjorie was on the point of fainting – she leaned back against the wall, her face dead white. She knew that Ted would do it – would drag Anne from her bed and strip her and beat her.

  ‘Eh?’ said Ted again, looking at her. ‘Come here to me.’

  She opened her mouth to scream, but fr
om her dry throat there only escaped a little pitiable sound, no louder than the bleating of a new-born kid.

  ‘Come here to me,’ said Ted. This was the hour of his triumph. He would not move forward an inch to bring her to him. She must come, on her own legs, submissive.

  ‘It’s your last chance’ snapped Ted. ‘Anne’s last chance.’

  ‘A – a – ah!’ screamed Marjorie.

  The door was beside her, still ajar. There was still flight. At her first step hysterical fear took charge of her. She leaped out into the hall before she knew she was going to do so. She heard Ted’s step behind her, and flung herself towards the front door. She reached it in time, and ran and ran and ran through the streets where the small rain was falling. She was hatless and coatless. Her eyes were streaming with tears, her upper lip was beslobbered with slime, as she ran, down the steep slope of Simon Street, across the side turnings to Dewsbury Road. She ran swiftly and blindly. Nor did she consciously guide her steps. Perhaps she would have run like this had there been no hope of finding help. As it was, habit and instinct drove her to where Mother was, where George was, where her childhood’s home had been.

  She ran silently, without her slipper heels touching the pavement, gasping and sobbing as she ran, as swiftly as some Olympic runner. One or two pedestrians saw her pass, and turned to stare after her, but she went past them so quickly, and there was so little to be gained by attempting to overtake her or by calling to her, that, wondering, they let her run on and did nothing.

  The latch of the gate had been familiar to her since childhood. Her hand found the knocker of the door without seeking for it. She hammered at the door, hammered madly, until her mother came with quick steps to open it. There was George in the hall, too, drawn by this thundering on the door.

  ‘Mother!’ sobbed Marjorie. ‘It’s Ted!’

  ‘Come in, dear. Come in, and let’s shut the door,’ said Mother soothingly.

  She gave no sign of her triumph. She had known that something like this was bound to happen soon – exactly what, she had not been able to foretell, but some crisis of this sort which would deliver Ted into her hand.

  Marjorie stumbled into the hall. They could see her face wet with tears. She was almost inhuman with fear and nausea.

  ‘What’s the matter, darling?’ said George. ‘What is it, dear?’

  ‘It’s Ted!’ she repeated, her voice going up to a scream. ‘He’s a devil! He’s wicked! He’s beastly!’

  ‘What’s he done,’ demanded George.

  ‘Oh, he’s – no, I can’t stop here! I mustn’t stop here! I must go back! Quick!’

  She turned distractedly back to the door, fumbling for the latch.

  ‘We’ll come back with you,’ said Mother with instant decision. ‘George, you go with her. I’ll catch you up in a minute.’

  They went out into the street, George silent and hot with rage, Marjorie stumbling weakly now, with dreadful sobs tearing her at every step. A few seconds later Mother came running up to join them. In her hand swung the leather carrying bag, and in the bag was something heavy, but neither George nor Marjorie noticed it. No one spoke for fifty yards, and it was Marjorie who broke the silence. Her voice was weak now. It was as if she were sighing what she said.

  ‘Hurry!’ she said, and she tried to set an example, her weak legs nearly giving way beneath her. ‘He’s going to hit Anne! Perhaps he’s hitting her now.’

  ‘Why was he going to do that?’ asked George.

  ‘To make me sleep with him. He’s cruel. He’s dreadful. George, you don’t know what he is. He’s – he’s – oh, hurry, hurry!’

  She urged herself forward; it was a minute before she had breath enough to speak again.

  ‘What are we going to say to him, Mother?’ asked Marjorie.

  ‘We’re not going to say anything to him,’ said Mother, grimly. ‘We’re going to kill him.’

  George at her side gave a quick, sharp breath. He had heard what she had said, and it had chimed exactly with what he himself felt. He was insane, berserk with rage. He gave no thought to weapons as he clenched his hands at his sides; he did not know what it was that swung heavily in the leather bag Mrs Clair carried. Marjorie heard, too. She was mazed and stupid with misery, but she heard and understood. If Ted were to die Anne would be safe for always. That was her predominating thought. Very vaguely and mistily she went on to think that Ted’s death would solve all the other problems, too, but she was hurrying too fast and was too consumed with anxiety to follow up that line of anticipation.

  ‘I’ve thought how we can do it,’ said Mother, ready to combat any irresolution, but it was unnecessary. No one had any comments to make. Neither George nor Marjorie was thinking clearly enough to be deterred by any thought of consequences, or even to realize the possibility of any consequence. They walked fast through the streets, the three of them. The steepness of Simon Street did not hold them back. They hastened down the slope of Harrison Way.

  ‘This way,’ said Mother, mindful as ever of practical details.

  They walked in through the side entrance, into the kitchen, and stood there for a second, Mother listening, and the other two for the moment irresolute.

  ‘Come along,’ said Mother; her leather carrying bag was still in her hand. They were following her into the hall when she thrust Marjorie back.

  ‘Wait there,’ she said to her, and then drew George with her across to the sitting-room door.

  Marjorie, standing on the threshold between kitchen and hall, where her mother had halted her, heard the sitting-room door open.

  ‘What the hell?’ she heard Ted say, loudly and angrily. ‘What the devil d’you think you’re doing in my house? Clear out, both of you.’

  Ted was naturally angry. He had been baulked of his triumph over his wife, and though he knew that is was only a postponement, that soon she would have to come crawling back to him, tamed and submissive, even a postponement was irritating, especially a postponement after the pubs were shut.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ Ted’s voice came plainly to Marjorie’s ears. ‘Clear out. As for you, young Ely –’

  ‘Take this, George,’ said her mother’s voice, calmly and quietly.

  Marjorie could not guess what it was she was giving him. Then she heard Ted say ‘Christ!’ in astonishment and fear, and immediately after the muffled sound of a blow and then a fall. Somebody – it seemed to her as if it was a voice she had never heard before – began to wail.

  ‘Oo – oo!’ said the voice, pitifully.

  ‘Hit him again, George,’ said Mother.

  Marjorie heard a crunching sound, and then heard it again, but the wailing stopped short at first.

  Mother came back into the hall. Her face was dead white, but she looked very calm and unruffled.

  ‘It’s all right now, dear,’ she said. ‘You can come in.’

  Something was lying on the floor; it wore Ted’s office clothes, and a black – no, a red – pool was round it. George was standing there, his face flushed and his nostrils spread open wide. He was breathing as hard as a dog in summer, and swinging idly from his right hand was a little axe, covered with red, too. His eyes were fixed in his head, and he stared motionless at the opposite wall – motionless save for the idle swinging of the axe. Some of the red on the axe formed itself into a long sluggish drop, like treacle, and then fell with a ‘plop’ on the linoleum.

  ‘We’ve got plenty of time,’ said Mother, looking at the clock still ticking on the mantelpiece. ‘But we mustn’t waste it. Here, give me that, George.’

  She took the axe from his unresisting hand, stood for a moment as though considering what to do with it, and then carried it out into the kitchen. Marjorie heard the iron top of the boiler stove being lifted and replaced; Mother had evidently dropped it in there. Mother came briskly back again.

  ‘I’ve lighted the gas under the kettles,’ she said. �
�We’ll want a lot of hot water to clear up this mess. You can start on that, Marjorie, while George and I are gone. There mustn’t be a mark, not a trace left. We’ll have to wash that rug through.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Marjorie – the first words she had spoken since she had entered the house.

  Mrs Clair leaned forward towards them so as to impress them more deeply with what she had to say. With her opening words she reached up to George’s lapel and shook him to rouse him to consciousness.

  ‘We’re going to carry him out down to the railway,’ she said. ‘We’ll put him on the lines. Before they have enough light to see him tomorrow there’ll have been a dozen trains go by. They won’t ever be able to tell that it was – this – and not suicide.’

  ‘Mother!’ said Marjorie. She was not so much shocked as surprised at her mother’s duplicity and readiness of resource.

  ‘Oh,’ said Mrs. Clair. ‘I’ve made all the arrangements. I told the police days ago that he was getting funny in his manner.’

  She met George’s eyes and Marjorie’s unflinching. They could guess if they like how much of this was her doing; she did not care now that it had been successful. She had never foreseen that it would happen on this particular evening and in this particular way – all she had done was to make a quarrel inevitable, a crime of violence inevitable, and had stood ready to supply the weapon and the means of extricating them from the consequences. Probably they would never guess how much was planned and how much was an inevitable chance.

  ‘Oh, come along,’ said Mrs Clair, testily. ‘We mustn’t waste any more time. George, you take his shoulders. George, pull yourself together now. That’s right. Take his shoulders and I’ll take his legs. Put the light out, Marjorie, and then open the French window. That’s the way. Come along, George.’

  Mrs Clair was whispering now, with the opening of the window.

  ‘There’s a chair here, George. Mind how you go round it. Remember the step. You’re just coming to it. That’s right. Step quietly.’

  Their slow soft footsteps died away down the path. Marjorie stood for a moment on the step by the French window. Her head was clearing fast. She pulled the window to, leaving it ajar. Then she drew the curtain across it once more, and stole across the dark sitting-room to the lighted hall. There was a clear picture in her mind’s eye of the dark pool at the further end of the room, its shape and its size. Even in the darkness she was able to avoid stepping in it, but she shuddered as she crept by it.